31 Jan 2027

Openreach PSTN copper switch-off deadline

~80%

UK premises now passed by FTTP full-fibre

£0

Line rental on FTTP, Virgin cable or 5G home broadband

1912

Year the General Post Office monopoly created what is now Openreach

What "line rental" actually is in 2026

Line rental is the historic £15 to £22 a month wholesale charge that Openreach levies for the copper twisted pair running from the local exchange into your home. It pays for the upkeep of the network, the exchange equipment and the in-home master socket. The charge exists because most retail broadband providers do not own the last-mile copper themselves; they buy access to it from Openreach and bundle the cost into your monthly bill.

In 2026 the charge is rarely visible on a bill. Since the 2018 ASA ruling on broadband advertising, providers have been required to quote a single all-inclusive monthly price covering both broadband and line rental. The two-part billing that confused customers for a decade is gone, and the line rental still exists only on Openreach copper-based products such as ADSL and FTTC.

Bundled, not abolished. An "all-inclusive" broadband price still contains line rental on FTTC and ADSL. It is only genuinely free of line rental on full-fibre (FTTP), Virgin Media cable and 5G home broadband, because none of those technologies use the copper voice line.

Who still pays line rental in 2026?

Around four UK households in five now have access to a connection that bypasses the analogue voice line entirely. The remaining one in five, plus anyone who chose to keep a copper landline when fibre was offered, still pays for line rental even if the bill no longer itemises it.

  • FTTC and ADSL customers: the broadband signal still travels over the copper line, so the line rental sits inside the bundled monthly price.
  • Anyone keeping a standalone analogue landline: these accounts still exist for vulnerable customers and rural lines awaiting fibre, and they continue to be billed on the legacy structure.
  • FTTP customers: no line rental at all. The fibre runs directly into your home and the copper line is decommissioned.
  • Virgin Media cable customers: no line rental either. Virgin runs its own coaxial and fibre network and has never used the Openreach copper voice line.
  • 5G home broadband (Three, EE, Vodafone) customers: no line rental, no copper, no fibre dig. The connection is purely over the mobile network.

For a side-by-side comparison of what each technology delivers, see our guide to broadband without a phone line.

The 2027 PSTN switch-off: the end of line rental

The single biggest story for line rental in the next 12 months is the retirement of the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). By 31 January 2027, Openreach will have switched off the analogue copper voice service across the whole of the UK. Every remaining landline is being migrated to Digital Voice or VoIP, which runs over your broadband connection rather than a dedicated copper pair.

For most households the change is invisible. The number stays the same, the provider ports it automatically, and a standard phone handset plugs into the green telephone port on the back of the router instead of a wall socket. What does change is the economics: once the copper voice line disappears, there is nothing left to rent, and the line-rental component disappears with it.

What if you keep a phone? Every major UK provider now offers a Digital Voice or VoIP service for customers who want to keep a working landline number. The handset plugs into the green telephone port on the back of the router and behaves exactly like the old landline: same number, same dial tone, same 999 access, and on most full-fibre packages no separate line-rental charge.

  • BT Digital Voice: bundled free on most BT Full Fibre packages, ports your existing 01 or 02 number across.
  • Sky Talk on broadband: rolled out across Sky Stream and Sky Glass households on full fibre, no separate line charge.
  • Virgin Media Talk: optional add-on on cable broadband, never carried line rental.
  • Vodafone Talk: bundled with Vodafone Pro II Full Fibre, includes inclusive UK minutes.
  • Other ISPs: TalkTalk Future Fibre, EE, Plusnet, Hyperoptic and Community Fibre all offer a VoIP add-on or bundle.

For the technical detail of how Voice over IP works, see our explainer on VoIP.

Openreach, BT and the FTTP rollout

Openreach owns and maintains the physical network used by 690+ UK internet service providers, including BT, Sky, TalkTalk, Vodafone, EE and Plusnet. It has been a separate legal entity from BT Group since 2017, following Ofcom's Digital Communications Review of 2016. BT cannot influence the wholesale prices Openreach charges its rival ISPs, and Openreach engineers serve every retail provider on the same terms.

Openreach's strategy for the late 2020s is straightforward: replace the copper network with full fibre as quickly as possible, then switch off the legacy analogue voice service. The fibre-to-the-premises rollout now covers around 80% of UK homes and is on track to reach 25 million premises by the end of 2026. Once a postcode has FTTP, line rental in the traditional sense ceases to be a meaningful concept for new customers.

FTTP providers with no line rental. If your address has been passed by full fibre, the following providers will sell you broadband with no line rental component, regardless of whether you take a phone service alongside.

  • On the Openreach FTTP network: BT, Sky, EE, Plusnet, Vodafone, TalkTalk Future Fibre, Zen.
  • On their own networks (altnets): Virgin Media cable, Hyperoptic, Community Fibre, Gigaclear, Trooli, Netomnia.
  • On the CityFibre wholesale network: brsk, YouFibre, Cuckoo, Now Broadband Full Fibre and TalkTalk via CityFibre.

For an up-to-date roundup of the best monthly prices, see our pick of the cheapest broadband deals.

Keep your landline or go broadband-only?

If your address has FTTP available, the only remaining question is whether to keep a landline at all. Digital Voice makes the cost negligible on most packages, but a broadband-only contract is still usually a few pounds cheaper and removes a service many households no longer use. The trade-off depends on power-cut resilience, mobile signal quality and who you call.

Advantages

  • Keep landline (Digital Voice): your number stays the same, useful for elderly relatives and family who already dial it.
  • Keep landline (Digital Voice): underpins monitored alarms, telecare pendants and some lifts that still rely on a phone line.
  • Keep landline (Digital Voice): provides a fallback in areas with poor mobile signal where 4G or 5G is unreliable indoors.
  • Broadband-only: cheaper monthly bill, often £3 to £6 less than the same package with a phone service.
  • Broadband-only: simpler billing, no inclusive minutes you never use.
  • Broadband-only: usually quicker to order on a fresh FTTP install with no porting step.

Disadvantages

  • Keep landline (Digital Voice): still a recurring cost on copper FTTC bundles, even if invisible in the monthly total.
  • Keep landline (Digital Voice): dies in a power cut unless your provider has fitted a free battery backup.
  • Keep landline (Digital Voice): rural and full-fibre engineer appointments to migrate the number can run several weeks behind.
  • Broadband-only: no 999 dialling from a handset if your mobile loses signal during a power cut.
  • Broadband-only: some monitored alarms and care lines need a phone line and will not work on broadband-only.
  • Broadband-only: porting an existing landline number to a future provider becomes harder once the line is ceased.

A brief history of UK line rental

Line rental in the UK is more than a century old. The General Post Office (GPO), then a government department, absorbed the largest private telephone operator in 1912 and ran a near-total state monopoly over British phone lines for the next 69 years. British Telecom was carved out of the GPO in 1981, privatised in 1984, and finally split into wholesale and retail arms in 2006 with the creation of Openreach. Legal separation followed in 2017 after Ofcom's Digital Communications Review. The 2027 PSTN switch-off ends the chapter that began with copper twisted pairs in the Edwardian era.

  • 1912: the GPO takes over the National Telephone Company and gains a near-monopoly on UK phone lines.
  • 1981: the Telecommunications Act creates British Telecom by separating telecoms from the Post Office.
  • 1984: BT is privatised under the Thatcher government, opening the way for competition.
  • 1994: the final phase of BT's privatisation completes, just as commercial dial-up internet takes off.
  • 2006: Openreach is created as a functionally separate arm of BT Group to run the access network.
  • 2017: Openreach becomes a legally separate company following Ofcom's Digital Communications Review.
  • 2018: the ASA forces UK providers to advertise broadband prices as a single all-inclusive monthly figure.
  • 2027: the analogue PSTN copper voice network is switched off on 31 January, ending line rental as a standalone service.

For more detail on how the wholesale market works today, see our guide to Openreach.

Frequently asked questions

Only if you are on a copper-based product. Customers on FTTP full-fibre, Virgin Media cable or 5G home broadband do not pay line rental at all. Households on FTTC or ADSL still effectively pay it, but the charge is now bundled into a single monthly price under Ofcom and ASA rules introduced in 2018.

By 31 January 2027 Openreach will have migrated every UK landline from the analogue PSTN to Digital Voice or VoIP over your broadband router. Your existing number is ported over automatically and stays the same. The only change is that the handset plugs into the green telephone port on the back of the router rather than a wall socket.

The wholesale Openreach line cost sits between £15 and £22 a month in {{ $annee }}, but you no longer see it as a separate item. Since the 2018 ASA ruling, providers must advertise broadband and line rental as one combined price. On most FTTC tariffs the line is invisibly included in the headline monthly fee.

Yes. Every major UK provider now offers a Digital Voice or VoIP service that runs over your broadband connection instead of a copper line. BT Digital Voice, Sky Talk on broadband, Virgin Media Talk and Vodafone Talk all keep your existing number, work with a standard handset plugged into the router, and are usually bundled at no extra monthly cost on FTTP packages.

No. Virgin Media runs its own cable network and has never used the Openreach copper twisted pair, so there is no line-rental component on a Virgin broadband bill. Adding Virgin Media Talk for landline calls is optional and priced as an add-on rather than a mandatory line charge.

Openreach owns and maintains the physical copper and fibre network that reaches 99% of UK premises. BT is one of 690+ retail providers that buy access to that network. The two have been a separate legal entity since 2017, following Ofcom's Digital Communications Review. BT cannot give itself a price advantage over Sky, TalkTalk, Plusnet or any other ISP.

Next steps

If your address has full fibre, switching to an FTTP package is the quickest way to drop line rental for good and lock in faster speeds at the same time. If you are still on copper, planning the Digital Voice migration ahead of January 2027 stops you being moved over on the provider's timetable rather than yours.

Article reviewed in June 2026.